(((folkYEAH!))) Presents: Sister Nancy (Ophlin Russell) broke ground as Jamaica’s first internationally recognized female dancehall deejay. Her 1982 hit “Bam Bam,” recorded at Channel One Studios and released on Winston Riley’s Techniques label, sits atop the Stalag riddim, a groove as eternal as reggae itself. The chant “bam bam” dates back to Toots & The Maytals (1966), connecting Nancy’s version to a deeper Jamaican lineage of rhythmic call-and-response. Her interpretation, however, is wholly her own: fierce, confident, and declarative. Born Ophlin Russell on January 2, 1962, in Kingston, Jamaica, Sister Nancy grew up in a large family of fifteen children in a deeply religious home where her father was a revivalist pastor. Despite the conservative environment, music called to her early. Inspired by her older brother, Brigadier Jerry, one of Jamaica’s most respected deejays, she began performing on local sound systems as a teenager, including Jah Love and later Stereophonic alongside General Echo. In a time when the dancehall scene was almost entirely male, she broke barriers by grabbing the mic and